Over the weekend, I participated in a two-day Volcano Institute seminar “Gems of Hawaiian Evolution”.  Led by Rob Robichaux and Mililani Browning of the Three Mountain Alliance, this Friends of HVNP event gave us background and provided field trips to view the rarest of the rare native plants from our island.  Many of the plants we saw in the field and in the University’s Rare Plant Propagation facility are on the brink of extinction.  We were guided by horticulturalist extraordinaire Patty Moriyasu who has performed miracles in getting plants to grow.  Clermontia peleana for example was thought to be extinct and a plant was cultivated from a seed in collection.  Shortly after some of the first outplantings from that mother plant, three wild individuals were discovered along the Wailuku river.  Now there are dozens growing in the wild from outplantings.  Rob Robichaux’s work with the Silverswords has led the effort which has increased populations from a few individuals to thousands at several sites.  The Silverswords, perhaps the most famous of Hawaiian plants, are one of the planets best example of the evolutionary process called Adaptive Radiation.

For more info check out these links:
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/Faculty/Carr/silversword.htm
http://www.fhvnp.org/Institute.htm
http://hawp.org/olaa-kilauea.asp
Posted by Rob Pacheco at 1:21:31 PM in Blogs by Rob Pacheco, HFT Founder (16) | Comments (0)